Ed Price of FanHouse.com reported on Friday that Zack Greinke changed agents. Later on Friday, Jon Morosi reported that Greinke has officially requested a trade. (Hmm....Morosi's source may have just been identified). Royals GM Dayton Moore has not commented on the report but it's no secret Greinke is likely to be traded. Moore uses words like "if and when" Greinke is traded suggesting it's imminent.
If this leaked report of a trade request came from Greinke's camp as we suspect then it's an indication that they're turning up the heat on the Royals to make a deal.
From Greinke's perspective, it makes sense to do something before the 2011 season. He probably doesn't want to enter the 2011 season with as much uncertainty as there will likely be. If he has a Royals uniform on next April, the questions will simply be: When will you get traded? I imagine no player wants to go through that.
So Greinke likely wants some stability and he wants it now. His agent likewise probably wants to get a trade done, negotiate some sort of extension and get paid. The sooner that happens, the sooner everyone is happy.
From the Royals perspective, Greinke (in theory) loses value every day he's still on the Royals. He has a team friendly deal and trading him now versus next year means one more (relatively) cheap year you can hang onto Greinke. So from KC's perspective, a trade before 2011 makes sense, too.
Now the question is....when will the Royals trade him?